


Cafuné

by sunrisenpoet



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Male Apprentice (The Arcana), Pre-Canon, post PLAGUE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 05:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18934693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunrisenpoet/pseuds/sunrisenpoet
Summary: Cafuné (n). The act of running your fingers through the hair of someone you love."You don't leave to get away from me, do you?"





	Cafuné

_(“What would you do to bring someone so important to you back? He was doing what was right and I failed him once,” Asra says with a sorrowful expression._

_“I am not going to fail him again.”)_

For every bit Anatole doesn’t remember, Asra does. For example, there is a box of trinkets and pictures in the back of one of the shop’s closets — all of them tokens of a life his best friend doesn’t remember. It’s full of pictures of a family who has no idea they lost a son, and an uncle who has no idea his nephew is still alive.

Sometimes, when Anatole’s running an errand on his own, or he’s too busy downstairs he takes the box out and goes through its contents. There’s an impressive stack of notebooks and diaries, overflowing with Anatole’s unmistakable handwriting penning down notes on magic and its principles; on languages and the scientific aspects of light; on his thoughts and dreams and fears. 

It’s not that he is no longer himself, even if he’s different: he’s too stubborn to not be himself, Asra thinks ruefully. It’s all of them little mementos of a life lost to time and the Plague. 

_(“You could die! All of us could die! We have to leave, Nana!”  
_

_“So you don’t think I can do this? Asra just let me do this — actually, I’m not asking your permission, this is my choice, and you’re going to have to accept it Asra. I_ know _I will not be able to live with myself if I walk away from this.”  
_

_“Do you really think they will care if you die?”  
_

_“Asra! What is wrong with you? I understand you don’t have the best experience with Vesuvians, but I have to try!”)_

Today is not one of those days, today, Anatole is sitting at the edge of their shared bed, as Asra kneels behind him running his fingers through his hair, as he braids it. He had walked into the living quarters of the shop, asking if Asra could, because he didn’t know how to do it, and he thought braids where nice. He had smiled softly at his best friend and agreed.

He had always loved Anatole’s hair.

His hair: that much hasn’t changed; neither Anatole’s precise and meticulous fussing over it. Maybe he couldn’t (yet) speak multiple languages, maybe he wouldn’t remember how to play the harp or the piano, maybe Asra has had to teach him everything about magic again, but this much? It’s as it has always been. He still likes his hair blonde, still keeps it that light golden shade which reminds Asra so much of a wheat field, or the high noon sun. 

He still doesn’t know how to braid it, and Asra is still happy to oblige. He will always be.

_(”Then go! Fucking leave! No, of course I don’t think you’re a selfish bastard, but you don’t get to use any sort of leverage on me, to try and stop me from what I know I must do! You are the one trying to take my decisions for me!”)_

“Can I ask you a question?” Anatole says. His voice is barely more than a whisper. _  
_

Asra had noticed him tensing up for a while before he spoke. This was the strangest part: seeing one of the most assertive people he’s ever known so unsure of everything. It doesn’t matter if he’s asking for a small favour or a big one, something banal or something important, nervously twitching his hands, or rubbing them together. 

“Of course you can, Nanatole.”

Anatole giggles at the nickname — one of the many that had stuck from Asra making wordplays with his name — but doesn’t speak after a long moment, opening his mouth and closing it again, as Asra kept running his fingers through his hair.

When he finally gathers his resolve, he says: “You don’t… you don’t leave to get away from me, do you?”

“No!” Asra rushes to say, the familiar pang of guilt he gets every time he leaves resurfacing. “You’re my friend, Nanatole, I would never…”

But he did. He left, once.

“Is that how it looks like? Because I _swear_ that’s not the reason I leave, I just… cannot tell you yet, and I really wish I could.”

Anatole visibly relaxes, sighing. “Oh, okay— okay. I only wanted to ask, that is all, because, because if that was the reason, I would prefer that you told me. That way I can maybe move out, or we can, I don’t know—”

“No, Anatole, it’s really not,” Asra interrupts him. “I’m sorry I’m away so much it makes you think it’s because I don’t like being around you. It’s never that.”

He’s silent as Asra braids the rest of his hair, looking himself in the mirror when he’s finished, thanking him. 

Asra’s about to go downstairs when Anatole speaks again.

“Do you leave for a good reason? Is the reason why you leave important to you?”

“Yes,” Asra replies. It’s the least he can do.

“Okay… then I can endure it. I like my alone time but sometimes— anyway, it’s not important if you have a good reason to do it. You don’t have to tell me, I’m only your apprentice after all,” he says with a smile.

“Listen, I don’t know how I know this, but I just _know_ sometimes we must do very hard things, for reasons often misunderstood to others; yet they are good reasons, which make sense to us, but we’re hindered by people who do not understand them, or who fear them. I don’t want to be that person to you. I don’t want to hold you back.”

Asra’s astonished by his words, feeling heavy with all the secrets he keeps for his well-being, heavy with remorse and absolutely stunned at how close his words are to what he had told him the last time they saw each other, during the Plague. He wonders if back then, Anatole, alone and estranged from most people he was once close to, didn’t feel the same crushing he feels now.

Perhaps he did. Perhaps some things are so ingrained in us, not even death can take them away. Like that morning Anatole woke up, and could only speak his mother tongue.

“You could never be,” is all that Asra replies.

 _(”Let_ me _tell_ you _something, Asra Alzanar: you don’t get to hold me back. You’re doing the same thing my family has always done. Not because you cannot understand my reasons, or are afraid of them you get to be a hindrance. This is my life, this is my decision, and I rather be crushed by the weigh of my choices than walk away like a coward, when I have the means to help.”)_

**Author's Note:**

> This was a tumblr prompt I liked too much not to share here.
> 
> You can come say hi to Anatole in @sunrisenfool on tumblr.
> 
> Clarifying just in case: the bits in parenthesis are flashbacks. The first is a conversation between Asra and Muriel, and the rest of them are from the fight Asra and Anatole had about leaving Vesuvia during the plague. I suppose my boy is too stubborn for some things to be taken away with death.


End file.
